SMALL TOWN BOY (DATING AMBER)

Five years after same sex marriage was approved in a referendum, it is important to remember just how long it took the Irish Republic to get to a place where it cherished all of its children regardless of their sexuality.

Same sex relationships were only decriminalised in 1993 - just five years after the country was shamed into accepting its laws breached the European Convention on Human Rights and 26 years after England and Wales.

Scotland decriminalised homosexual relationships in 1980 and Northern Ireland in 1982 but only after Belfast gay rights campaigner and future Ulster Unionist councillor Jeff Dudgeon successfully took the UK Government to the European Court of Human Rights after he filed a complaint seven years earlier about the police interrogating him about his sexual relationships.

Jeff Dudgeon's victory would inspire the Dublin academic and gay rights activist David Norris' successful European Court of Human Rights challenge against the Irish Government after his country's Supreme Court nartowly upheld in 1983 a High Court ruling that the ban on homosexuality was constitutional.

Dudgeon and Norris' victorious efforts to decriminalise LGBT relationships on either side of the Irish border were hard fought and should never be forgotten.

The latter's victory also forms a fascinating backdrop to David Freyne's second feature film 'Dating Amber' - a teenage Irish comedy drama that, in this era of Covid-19 restrictions, has gone straight to Amazon Prime.

Set two years after the repeal of the law that banned gay relationships in the Irish Republic, writer-director Freyne focuses on the struggle of two Kildare teenagers with their sexuality.

Fionn O'Shea's 17 year old Eddie lives in a state of acute anxiety.

Believing he must forge a career in the Irish Army because it is a family tradition, he undertakes an Army Cadets' course to please his dad, Barry Ward's senior officer Ian and Sharon Horgan's Hannah.

Fearing he may not be physically up to the challenge, he practices chin-ups on a chikdhood swing in the family's back garden - often struggling to do one.

Ian and Hannah's marriage is also under strain, with Eddie and his younger brother sitting awkwardly at the dinner table hearing their parents' blazing rows.

With his Walkman often glued to his ears, Eddie even inadvertently cycles into an Army shooting exercise on the Curragh camp - oblivious to the mayhem he is causing.

In school, he is often badgered by Ian O'Reilly's sex obsessed loudmouth Kev about whether he is "shifting" girls.

Ian even sets up a snogging session for him with Emma Willis' more promiscuous Tracey.

However after that encoubter goes disastrously, he is approached by Lola Petticrew's Amber who has noticed Eddie has a secret crush on Peter Campion's maths teacher.

Amber is a feisty girl with fanciful dreams of fleeing to London to set up a franchise of anarchist bookshops.

Her father has committed suicide but she hopes to fund her dream by regularly renting out a caravan in her mum Jill's caravan park to horny teenager boys and girls to have sex.

Amber is also secretly a lesbian and reveals this to Eddie, while confronting him about his own sexuality.

To help themselves navigate the pressures of smalltown life and the homophobic atmosphere prevalent in their Catholic school, Eddie and Amber concoct a plan.

They pretend to date each other and initially have some success convincing their parents and peers they are deeply in love.

However it is only a matter of time before the cracks start to show because of their feelings for others.

'Dating Amber' is the latest in a wave in recent years of Irish coming of age movies and TV shows about teenagers from Lenny Abrahamson's dark drama 'What Richard Did' and Simon Fitzmaurice's 'My Name Is Emily' to much lighter fare like John Carney's 'Sing Street', Peter Foott's 'The Young Offenders' on the big and small screen, Lisa McGee's hit Channel 4 sitcon 'Derry Girls' and, most recently, Abrahamson and Hettie MacDonald's adaptation of Sally Rooney's 'Normal People'.

The presence of Fionn O'Shea also ensures that comparisons are inevitable with John Butler's 2016 boarding school comedy drama 'Handsome Devil' which also dealt with a teenager struggling with being gay.

However the film that the central relationship of Eddie and Amber most resembles is Richard Ayoade's 'Submarine' with its quirky teenage couple and deeply unhappy parents.

A beach scene specifically seems like a nod to Ayoade's film, while Amber's duffel coat resembles Yasmin Paige's attire in the 2010 film.

Freyne imbues his story with a lot of heart but the result is a movie that engages the head and occasionally the heart, while not completely meeting expectations.

In his attempt to hit on the right comedy drama formula, the writer director doesn't quite get the balance right.

The drama often overshadow the comedy which never manages to go beyond the mildly amusing - even when it veers into the bawdy.

And this is where 'Dating Amber' suffers when compared to 'Handsome Devil.'

Dealing with similar themes, Butler managed to achieve a more effective balance between drama and comedy.

'Dating Amber,' though, has a good eye for 1990s nostalgia.

Pulp blares on the soundtrack, two boys scrap in the schoolyard over whether Oasis is better than Blur and Lauryn Canny's Trinity College student Sarah, who Amber falls for, even sports a Feile rock festival t-shirt which for many Irish teens was a rite of passage.

As for the cast, O'Shea and Petticrew make charming leads.

After his recent role as Marianne's sadistic middle class boyfriend in 'Normal People', it is good to see O'Shea playing a more nervous, conflicted teen.

On the back of her assured performance as a sensitive teenager in Shelly Love's delightful Derry comedy 'A Bump Along The Way', Petticrew does much to suggest she has a promising career ahead of her.

Ian O'Reilly's Kev seems a world away from his much more innocent character, Padraic in the Chris O'Dowd sitcom for Sky1, 'Moone Boy' but he has his moments, while Emma Willis has a lot of fun as Tracey.

Lauryn Canny also does a good job as the student who Amber falls for.

However it is the older members of the cast that most impress.

For the few scenes where he is onscreen, Peter Campion is a reassuring presence as a sympathetic teacher.

Simone Kirby does an effective job as Amber's angry and lost mum.

Barry Ward has some touching moments as Eddie's well meaning dad Ian.

However it is Sharon Horgan, in a role which is less comedic than we are used to, who arguably steals the show as she delivers the most heartrending speech in the film in which she tries to get her son to open up about his unhappiness.

There is much to savour in Freyne's second feature and plenty to suggest that he is a director worth keeping an eye on.

However 'Dating Amber' doesn't quite do enough to rank it alongside the great Irish coming of age movies.

As an insight into the struggles of teenagers coming out in the early days of a more progressive Ireland, it certainly earns its stripes.

But it lacks the comedic bite that is so desperately craves.

('Dating Amber' was released in the UK and Irelamd on streaming as an Amazon Prime original movie on June 4, 2020)

source https://loveitinpomona.blogspot.com/2020/06/small-town-boy-dating-amber.html